Admittedly, there wasn’t a ton of news on the computer front that caught our eye at CES — most of the news seemed to center around gaming — but one thing that did was Huawei’s announcement of the new-and-improved MateBook 13. It’s a lightweight laptop designed to bring many of the main features of the company’s MateBook X Pro, such as performance and battery life, and it looks to be a real competitor to Apple’s recently redesigned MacBook Air.
The new MateBook 13 has a 13-inch, 2160 x 1440 resolution screen and it can be configured with Intel’s latest Whiskey Lake Core processors. One of the most important stats to note is that you have the option of upgrading the MateBook 13 with an Nvidia GeForce MX150 graphics card, which the MacBook Air certainly doesn’t have, and it’s a feature that should entice many entry-level gamers. Additionally, the MateBook 13 can be configured with 256GB or 528GB of storage.
As far as size, Huawei’s latest lightweight laptop has the MacBook Air beat. It has a thinner clamshell design, meaning it’ll slip even easier into your backpack or messenger bag, but it also has a slightly better screen-to-body ratio — more screen, less bezel. If you’re not tied to MacOS, the MateBook 13 looks to be the best alternative to the MacBook Air… and it can be configured with Nvidia graphics.
And while there has been a fair amount of uncertainty regarding Huawei and its CFO in the US, it’s undeniably clear that the brand is pushing the limits of what can be accomplished in a featherweight laptop design.
The MateBook 13 will retail for $999 for the Core i5 model and $1,299 for the Core i7. It’s slated to be available on Amazon in the US starting January 29th.
